


Three Things

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1513562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin is lost in his head, with Sam's voice for company. Awkward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Balder12](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balder12/gifts).



> For this year's springfling, for balder12's prompt "labyrinths."

Sam’s voice in his head shouldn’t be worse than Crowley’s. Maybe being dead has something to do with it.

“You’re not dead,” says Sam. 

“Yes I am,” says Kevin, “No offense, but you were kind of there.”

Sam’s silent. Kevin’s cello is leaning against the wall. No bow. Kevin plucks the C string. The acoustics here at Dead Central are terrible. The note buzzes and fades. 

“Listen,” Sam’s voice sounds off, too, distorted by the maze of corridors. “You’re alive. Metatron brought you back. He needed a prophet after all to, to edit his manuscript or something, I don’t know. He brought you back. But you’re having some trouble adjusting. We need to get out of here, OK? You’ve got to wake up.”

Kevin is well-adjusted, his teachers always said. Driven, but well-adjusted. He looks down the corridor it sounded like Sam’s voice was coming from. He can’t see far, because it turns again. The walls are a bland, well-adjusted institutional green. Something bulky blocks the path. The closet door from the houseboat, blown off its hinges. Kevin would rather not go that way.

“What are you doing here?” he asks Sam’s voice. If Sam and Dean are here, they want something. Kevin heads down the other branch. He hid the tablet somewhere. There’s a lot of writing on the walls, Arabic, Hittite, Enochian, but it doesn’t look like Trials stuff. Or like instructions for coming back from the dead, or getting Sam Winchester’s voice out of your brain.

“Looking for you,” says Sam. That’s a change. “Cas brought me in. Look, I’m sorry to, to, uh, gatecrash your brain. But we’ve got problems.”

“You want me to wake up and deal with Metatron,” says Kevin. “No thanks. You’ve always got problems. I’m not volunteering to get screwed again.”

“Not Metatron problems,” says Sam. “Well, yes, those, but not immediate. You problems. You’re back in your body, Kevin. But you haven’t settled. You’ve been throwing things around, like a poltergeist or something, but you’re not . . . at home. Your mom got you to the Bunker. She’s pretty worried.”

There’s a door at the end of this hallway. Kevin opens it. Snow falls past big windows. Islands of desks stand in pools of light. Kevin is sprinkling glitter over a construction paper Christmas tree. Ali has a snowflake and Megan has a wreath. Kevin picks up his tree to show Mrs. Morton. The glitter blows off, tiny shards of light. 

“It doesn’t stick,” says Kevin. Ali is holding his snowflake up. His glitter is sticking. “Mine doesn’t stick.” 

“You have to use glue, stupid,” says Megan. 

“Here, let me show you,” says Mrs Morton. But it’s not Mrs Morton, it’s Sam, light pouring through the cracks. He’ll put his hands on Kevin’s head and it will go dark. 

Kevin stumbles backwards. There’s no door anymore. The walls are stark white.

“Hey,” says Sam’s voice. Maybe. Kevin huddles against the wall and tries not to breathe. Not that he is. He’s dead.

“Kevin, it’s me. Not him. It’s just me. Gadreel’s dead.”

“ _I’m_ dead,” says Kevin. “I’ve finally made it to the afterlife and heaven is Mrs. Morton turning into you killing me. It blows.” Kevin got screwed again. 

“Heaven does blow,” says Sam. “Bad day in pre-K sounds about right. But this isn’t heaven. This is just your brain.”

“You saw?” says Kevin. Having Sam in his head is uncomfortable, for a lot of reasons. He doesn’t want Sam prying at his childhood.

“Sorry,” says Sam, “I can’t help it.”

“I was late,” says Kevin. “The day we made ornaments, I missed where she explained the glue.”

“Your first and last school-related failure?” says Sam. His voice is teasing, and Kevin’s face warms. Sam doesn’t talk to him like that. “I think you survived. Stand up. You have to get to the center to get out.”

“Bite me,” says Kevin. But he stands up. 

The walls are screens of trigonometry problems now. Kevin navigates easily, turning where he’s supposed to. Sam’s not talking, but Kevin can feel the hum of his mind in the back of his own, working with him. It sounds like a Bach cello suite. Kevin’s so busy listening he runs smack into Crowley.

“Fancy meeting you here,” says Crowley.

“It’s my brain,” says Kevin. 

“I guess that explains me,” says Crowley, “I’ve earned a place in your heart. I’m touched. A place of bloody honor, I hope. Guided tour?” He flings open a door. It’s the houseboat again, littered with broken glass.

“Been there, bought the souvenir. Something different.” Crowley hurries Kevin through a maze of open doors. There’s a room full of his mom, over and over, hundreds of her, crammed together so she can’t breathe, a room of Channings, a room with nothing but a bird cage and a stopped clock. They all shatter as Kevin passes, shards and clots, gears, brain matter, curlicues of delicate wire, a single blue feather. Kevin is trying to write, a test, it’s another test, Enochian roots. It’s hard when his fingers are missing. Blood smears the page.

“Kevin,” says Sam’s voice. “Kevin, stop. It’s not him.”

“You’re one to talk about not being you, Moose,” says Crowley. “What are you here? Guide, philosopher, and friend? Kevin doesn’t trust you, you know. He thinks you Winchesters use him and hang him out to dry. I’ve told him so myself a time or three. Good luck convincing him that I’m the impostor.”

“You shouldn’t trust me,” says Sam, “or Dean. You shouldn’t trust us. We’ll let you down. We did let you down. But not right now. I’m getting you out.”

“How do I know?” says Kevin. “How do I know it’s you who’s real, not him? How do I know either of you is?” 

“Better hope it’s me,” says Crowley. “Fewer embarrassing secrets. I mean, Sam probably knows you have some not-friendly feelings. But does he know about the friendly ones?”

“Shut up,” says Kevin. But Crowley’s talking on. If this is Kevin’s brain, it’s as much of a blabbermouth as the real Crowley.

“Should we show Sam pictures? The workout one is quite artistic. That charmingly retro gym does invite pornography.”

The pictures pour out of Kevin, hot off the press, like a xerox machine spitting copies. Things he’s thought about. It’s none of his brain’s fucking business, what he thinks about in the shower. It’s none of Sam’s business. The whole maze is wavering in scalding, stupid panic. 

“Ignore it,” says Sam’s voice. “It’s a delaying tactic. For fuck’s sake, Kevin. It’s OK. It doesn’t matter. You have to get to the heart. Think.”

The heart of a labyrinth is a monster.

Kevin closes his eyes, puts his fist through Crowley’s chest. The monster’s heart. He’s in the heart, bolted to the chair, the knife flashing down towards his finger. It’s a trap. His mom screams. Channing’s neck snaps. Sam, not Sam, the angel, not Sam, reaches for him, limned with light. Kevin tries to twist away, but Sam’s hands come down.

“Cas,” Sam says, “ _now_.” The light blazes black. 

Kevin opens his eyes. For the moment he can only see a ceiling. There’s a voice somewhere. Not Crowley, not Sam. Castiel. Castiel is saying Sam is fine. Then there’s someone else. Mom.

 

Three hours later Kevin knocks at Sam’s door. 

“Come in,” Sam calls. Kevin edges in and leans on the doorframe. Sam’s sitting at his desk, tilted back in his chair. He’s got on those weird, old-fashioned clothes he wears here, a jacket and a sweater vest. Formal. It should help. It really doesn’t, though.

“You were really there, weren’t you?” Kevin says. “It wasn’t just some dream thing.”

“Yeah,” says Sam. “Sorry. It was all we could come up with.”

“The stuff I, Crowley, said, about you. About me. About you.” Kevin stalls there. His face is scalding. So is Sam’s.

“Don’t, uh, don’t worry about it,” says Sam. “I know how much messed up stuff there is in people’s heads. I won’t draw conclusions, I promise. It’s totally normal. I mean, not me in particular, of course. I mean, thinking about people. That’s normal. Shit.”

This conversation was a bad idea. 

“I don’t want you to be nice about it or something,” says Kevin. “Don’t sit there and say the right thing, OK? I can deal. If you’re going to be tactful, if we’re going bury something in oblivion, that doesn’t even have to be it. It can be the glitter. I’m not necessarily comfortable with you knowing my history with glitter.”

Sam is supposed to laugh but he doesn’t. 

“I shouldn’t have seen any of it,” he says. “It’s not fair. I can’t make it fair. For what it’s worth, though, I’ve got my own glitter issues. I’m not going to judge.”

Kevin can feel Sam through his skin, even not looking, faint warmth and familiar bulk, dangerous and disappointing and unavoidably present. Walking around in Kevin’s head, now, in that grey shirt that stretches across his nipples. It’s all out of balance. Kevin’s caught at a disadvantage, a constant, wrong-footed tilt of the ground. All that fucking with his head has fucked with his head.

“So even it out,” he says to Sam, because he’s got to do something. “Make it fairer. Tell me something someone would only know if they’d been in your head. Tell me three things.”

This isn’t just a way of getting back to where he can be around Sam and not want to die. Kevin’s curious. This is his chance.

“All right,” says Sam, “Fair enough. Um. Three things.” He pauses for a long moment. “When I ditched my phones, that time,” he says at last, “when Dean was gone and I was on my own, the day I left them at the cabin, it, it was a beautiful day. Breezy. Little puffy clouds. I put them in a box and packed it away and then I just sat on the steps for, like, an hour, before I drove off. I don’t think I was thinking anything at all. Just, it was over, you know? Nothing left in my head. Like I was floating. Like things were just falling away. I’d have heard if one of them rang. None of them did. But I don’t know, if they had, I don’t know if I would have gone back in.”

“Things falling away,” says Kevin. “Like me, you mean.” _I didn’t fall away, you asshole. You dropped me._

He might as well have said it aloud. Sam nods, not giving anything, not asking. They wait through it together, a small, difficult silence.

“That’s one,” says Kevin finally. Sam sighs and runs his hands through his hair.

“OK, two,” he says. “Two. Let’s see. I had a picture of my mom. I stole it out of Dad’s journal. It was part of his damn case file on her. He must have known I took it. He never said, though. God forbid we talk about anything. Anyway. Dean and Dad, like I said, they didn’t talk about Mom. And one day I got mad. I dunno. I said something, something stupid, something about her, and Dean shut me up and I got mad. And I tore the picture up. I left the bits in the dumpster behind the motel. I was twelve. I was stupid. I mean, I got another one eventually, legit, Mom and Dad together. I took it to college. But that one was _mine_ , my secret, and I tore it up, I tore her up. Lucifer, the devil, you know, when he was in my head, a long time, a really long time, he, he was interested in that. I think he was actually curious. Angels don’t have mothers. He wanted to know about her, what I felt about her. I think I talked more about my mom to the fucking devil, taking me apart down there in the Cage, than I ever have to anyone alive. Anyway.” 

Sam’s breathing hard, staring at nothing, like he’s forgotten Kevin’s there. Kevin backs up a step, but he’s up against the door, there’s nowhere to go, unless he leaves. Sam’s head snaps round and he smiles ruefully.

“Sorry,” he says. “Overshare. Though I guess that was the idea. Don’t know why I dumped that one on you, though. Look, why don’t you choose thing three. Ask me something.”

_The devil, the Cage, Dean, do you like guys at all, do you ever look at me, why do you always hang me out to dry, did you do AP Latin, how do you do this coming back to life thing, what would happen if I told you, out here, for real._ Kevin doesn’t want to walk into another labyrinth, though. He’s alive. Sam’s alive. Still breathing a little quickly, his throat rising distractingly above his open collar and the V of his sweatervest. Kevin swallows. He’s still hovering by the door. He can leave if things get weird. 

“Glitter,” he says. “You said you had glitter issues. You’ve got to tell me the story. And no leaving stuff out because it reveals you were the backwards four-year-old who didn’t get glue.”

“Hmm,” says Sam, “Well, Dean knows that one, no head-walking required, so it doesn’t really count, but OK.I have this clown thing. It was Plucky Pennywhistle trauma, originally. You ever go to one of those? I don’t believe any kid likes them. They’re just some creepy child-trauma scheme. Anyway, there was a case at one, like, three or four years ago, one of those brings your fears to life things, and I got beat up by clowns. Water-squirting flowers in my face and a lot of bruising and glitter, man. Glitter everywhere. And I’m talking _everywhere_. Glitter in places where glitter should never be.” 

Sam’s looking at him now. There’s something in his eyes, something hopeful, promising, though he hasn’t even leaned forward, still tilted back in his desk chair. 

Kevin pauses, balanced at a crossroad, deciding. There’s a scale in the middle, not a monster, a scale. It trembles, poised. Him and Sam, both alive, both breathing. Even, or close enough. Sam doesn’t move. 

Kevin comes all the way in and sits on the bed.

“Everywhere, huh,” he says. “You should tell me more about that. I mean, you’ve been in my brain. It’s only fair.”


End file.
